Jeff Bezos’ net worth soared above $100 billion on Friday — meaning the Amazon founder is now richer than the entire country of Ecuador and is well on his way to eclipsing the gross domestic product of Peru, the source of the headwaters of the namesake river of the tech titan’s company.
According to Bloomberg, Bezos’ net worth climbed to $100.3 billion on Friday as Amazon’s stock soared more two percent based on the company’s prospects for the holiday shopping season. Bloomberg notes that Bezos is “the first billionaire to build a 12-figure net worth since 1999, when Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates hit the mark.”
Even more interesting, Gates and Bezos are next door neighbors in the tiny Seattle suburban enclave of Medina, Washington — which means two of the richest and most powerful tech titans now call the Pacific Northwest home.
Of course, Amazon is much more than an online retailer these days. It is now a powerhouse in entertainment, cloud computing, devices and logistics.
Adobe, which draws data from 80 percent of online transactions at the largest 100 U.S. web retailers, reported that Thanksgiving Day online sales in the U.S. reached $2.87 billion on Thursday.
Given that Amazon accounts for upwards of 50 percent of all online sales in the U.S., the Seattle-based e-commerce behemoth likely pulled in more than $1 billion in sales on Thursday, with higher numbers surely coming on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Amazon said it sold more than 64 million items on Cyber Monday last year, or 740 items per second.
Shares of Amazon closed Friday at $1,186, up 2.58 percent. Its market value now stands at a whopping $571 billion, just behind Microsoft, which has a market value of $642 billion.
